


Familiar

by QueenOfTheMerryMen



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen, SpookyOQ
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 03:27:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21172664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfTheMerryMen/pseuds/QueenOfTheMerryMen
Summary: Robin, a longtime witch's familiar, meets his new charge.





	Familiar

He used to be a person. He knows that much.   


Memories are hazy though. After his transformation they all turned into a bit of a blur. He remembers love, his wife and son. The dark eyes they shared. Early mornings where he’d watch them both sleep in his arms. It’s hard to feel now but he remembers happiness and he knows that’s what it felt like.   


He remembers magic. The electricity of it, running through his veins, flowing through his hands. He healed he thinks. There are so many memories of the sick and the elderly. His hands on their skin. The gratitude on their faces.   


He remembers fear and devastation. The mob and their pitchforks. His wife and son with nooses about their necks, swaying from the branch of a tree.   


He remembers pain. Flames licking at his skin, agony striking his every nerve.   


He doesn’t like to dwell much on his past.   


It’s irrelevant now, anyway. Hundreds of years have passed since he was human and he’s taken on dozens of forms since. Whatever’s necessary to watch over his charges.   


Life as a familiar is a challenge. Engaging in witchcraft is a dangerous lifestyle, less so than when he was alive but still quite risky. His job is to protect them, offer them guidance in his own limited way. It’s a challenge he’s come to enjoy.   


He left his latest charge just a day ago. A young lonely girl with a unique powers and blonde hair. He’d stayed with her for seven years in the form of a snow white rabbit, who’d she come to cherish. She’d fed and cared for him, called him her only friend for quite some time. He’d helped her change things. Guided her to friendships and confidence. A year ago, he’d led her to another young blonde witch, one with glasses and sense of adventure to match her own. When he saw the glint of an engagement ring upon her finger, he knew she would be okay. He slipped out of her house the next morning.   


Finding his charges was an instinct he didn’t quite understand. It always started with a new form and a pull inside of him that he couldn’t ignore.   


He felt a new one just a few hours after he left Alice.   


It took him a few days find his new charge. It appeared they would be residing next to a quiet lake off a main road. As he skittered past the water, a ripple in the air sent his hair rising above his spine. There was a power source nearby, he could feel it.   


Settling by a tree, he watched from afar as a moving truck pulled up next to a dusty old house right on the water. A dark-haired woman and a boy climbed out.   


His gaze landed on the boy. He was young, couldn’t have been older than 10-years-old. Hazel eyes fixed on a gameboy as he mother immediately moved to open the van. Even at a distance he could sense it. That pull, that need to guide and protect. This boy was his charge.   


“Henry!”   


His mother called to him as she pulled a box out of the back of van, asking for his help. She was a beautiful woman, he could tell. There was a hint of grief in her dark, brown eyes but a sense of formidableness in the way she carried herself. A mother in every sense of the word.   


He supposed it was time to introduce himself.   


Ambling toward them, attempting to look as helpless as possible, he rubbed against the boy’s leg, purring loudly.   


“Oh hey, it’s a cat!”   


Henry immediately scooped him up, a bit more roughly than he would’ve preferred but still lovingly. He meowed to show his contentment as his mother walked over with a box in her hands.   


“Huh… an orange tabby?” she mused, curiously. Scratching behind his ears, she wondered, “Where did this little guy come from? We’re the only house around for miles.”   


Henry shrugged. “I don’t know. Can we keep him?”   


“Sure, why not?” she replied, agreeably. “We could use a new friend.”   


_ A new friend indeed, _ he thought. 


End file.
